In the middle of the ruins surrounded by fire and destruction there was a man, kneeling while hugging a lifeless body of a woman, crying through clenched teeth. The man is surrounded by three men and two women floating in the air looking at the unfortunate scene with looks of indifference and condescension pasted on each of thier faces.
A voice came from one of the the three men saying, "You don't have to cry so much, you will be joining her soon". The man is wearing a billowing red robes with the patterns of a coiling snake and continued saying, "But you have to cooperate with us first, before we help you reunite with your dear wife".
The kneeling man looked up, anguish and anger can be seen on his face replied in a growling voice, "And why do you think that I have what you greedy bastard want? And even if I have it, I'd rather die than cooperate".
"You think you have a choice on this matter? Our losses are not small on this war, we are motivated enough to make sure you will help us" a beautiful woman with blue eyes in blue robes with pattenrs of snow crystal retorted coldly.
"Hahahaha" The kneeling man laughed in a crazy manner that made the five people sneered but at the same time a little afraid. "True, I do have the Artifact of Endlessness, but you haven't paid enough price to get your hands on this item".
"Hmmph", the man in red robes snorted and said "We have sealed the mana on this area so any thoughts of self destruction using the mana from the surrounding is out of the picture, even your spiritual sea is already at its limit, any attempt of casting a spell will put you to sleep immediately even if you channel it on the artifact, what else can you do? You can give up now and I can promise you a swift death or do we have to persuade you through special means?"
"I have a third option, kill you all with me." answered the kneeling man while lifting his right hand with palms facing up and shouted "Black Abyss!". A small but complicated rune hovered above his palm, and at the center of the rune was a black crystal that was shining in black light and as it is lighting up the runes and the crystal itself is dissolving in the black light.
The indifferent expressions of the five people changed into an ugly scowl. "Impossible! How can you cast a spell?" shouted the red robed man in disbelief.
"No, he never casted a spell. That spell is pre casted, he doesn't need any mana or spiritual assistance to activate a pre casted spell, no matter how high tiered the spell, all he need is to chant the name of the precasted spell and it will activate". Another man in green robes with a lotus pattern answered, and continued "I can feel an unfothamable amount of magical energy being released from the artifact! We have to go all out if we wish to survive that". The other four people looked each other and nodded, instantly a powerful energy blasted from their bodies including the green robed man. The five people instantly resonated their magical powers to balance it with each other and said together, "Heavenly Pillar of Self Preservation!". The bodies of the five persons were enveloped in golden pillar of light rising to the heavens, and the air was trembling and earth was quaking.
While that was happening the Artifact of Endlessness that was shining a black light from earlier in the palm of the kneeling man, dimmed down and was dissolved in the air together with magical rune, then the skies turned black, the horizons was engulfed in an endless darkness, the living creatures in the planet were frightened by the phenomenon, its like the light was robbed from the skies in an abrupt manner. Then all of a sudden a powerful pillar of magical energy with a radius of one thousand kilometers came barreling down from the skies with the speed faster than the light itself. The center of the pillar of energy was the kneeling man who hugged the woman's body tightly while smiling.
As fast as the pillar of energy appeared it only lasted half a minute then it disappear, turning the horizons back to normal. Though all of it takes time to describe but the activation of the black crystal only happened in less than a minute.
The after math of such destructive magical energy was a charred land with flattened moutains and dried up rivers devoid of life. In the middle of the destroyed lands are the five people who were previously sporting an immaculate look are now either kneeling or lying on the ground all have tattered robes bloody scars all over from their body it is evident that thay have suffered greatly from that attacked if not for the Heavenly Pillar of Self Preservation spell's ability to resonate with other people casting the same spell to multiply the proctective strength of the spell, it was sure that they have disintegrated into nothingness as well together with the bodies of the kneeling man and the woman he was hugging.
"That Marius! He is ended an era genius, to be able to pre cast such spell on that artifact." the green robed man sighed.
"No, he is vicious and decisive, he made sure that even if we survive, we can't gain anything aside from a barren lifeless land.", the man in red robes said testily.
The five people looked gloomy, they never thought that with all thier calculations and schemes they still end up losing after winning.